1967 Liberation theology brings out the political relevance of theology and rejects generalism; the church is not a fortress, but part of the city. The church is too closely associated with local elites; religion is used as an opiate for the poor. James Cone in A Black Theology of Liberation stresses the links between political and social liberation and God's work on the one hand, and complicity of the churches in oppressive sexism, racism, economic exploitation, wide gap between rich and poor, and Marxist views of the influence of material conditions upon consciousness on the other. Critics of this view cite a conflation of political liberation and Christian salvation. Mary Daly: Liberation theology is a response to poverty, the evils of colonialism, and the failure of the first world to spark development. Oscar Romero: Christian faith ought not to isolate us from, but rather immerse us in the world. 1970 Hal Lindsay’s The Late, Great Planet Earth suggests 1988 as the time of the Rapture. 1973 Roe v Wade legalizes abortion. 1974 Paul Ricoeur sees Barth's suspicion of religion's false comforts deepening the language of faith. He seeks suspicion to destroy idols and create space to hear the word of God. 1983 Rowan Williams: We need to recover elements of pre-modern traditions; ethics cannot be based in human reason; revelation, not reason is the shaping force in life. On Christian Theology acknowledges suspicion as a spiritual exercise: if we start from the human, we can't arrive at God; revelation allows us to break out of the liberal/fundamentalist dichotomy. 1968 Butler Act is ruled unconstitutional; Fundamentalists demand “Equal Time” to teach Creationism. 1980 Ronald Reagan champions Fundamentalism with the slogan, “Let’s Make America Great Again!” 1987 The Supreme Court determines that Creation Science is religious, strikes down Equal Time; the Fundamentalists now promote Intelligent Design. 1988 88 Reasons why the Rapture will occur in 1988 by Edgar Whisenant. He is wrong (see Part Four). 1991 Gianni Vattimo: Secularization is a purification of religion, a trait of authentic religious experience. 1991 Stephen Carter The Culture of Disbelief: Religions are mutually exclusive: extra ecclesia nulla salus; The idea that God has a "chosen people” breeds intolerance. How can we function in a religiously diverse society? Secularism - people from all faiths or no faith engage on a level playing field. Strong secularism holds that public discourse should be free of religious language, but in that case, religion might be trivialized - the price of the compromise reached by the Founding Fathers. The US has had for the past 50 years a legal secularism in which the public sphere is strictly secular and religion deemed irrelevant to civil obligations. 1992 Daniel Dennett Breaking the Spell: We ought to study religion like any other mystical human phenomenon, remaining critical of those who believe in belief rather than in God. 2000 Plantinga: Belief can be rationally justified without evidence if this belief serves as a properly basic belief. ~~~~~~~~